these fallen dreams
by mellode
Summary: They’re twenty-three and it’s almost like old times. — Naruto, Sakura, gen.


**these fallen dreams**

It starts _small_, so small that Naruto hardly notices and hardly cares. He's busy, too busy, because Tsunade is _old_ now (and Kakashi runs away from the problem) and there are too many things to be done before he can claim the title that is rightly his.

Sakura trespasses at the garbage dump he calls home daily now and never fails to remind him that he's a jounin. Surely he's making too much money to spend it all on ramen so could he _please_ get a bigger apartment? He says no, every time, with a noodle dangling from his mouth and his sandals half-on. This is his _home_, he tells her, already out the door. Doesn't matter if there's ramen stains on the ceiling and his legs hang off his bed.

She huffs and fixes the calendar that went crooked at the door slamming. There are fallen clothes littering the floor, the kitchen's sink has a tower of instant ramen cups, and Sakura is due for a shift at the hospital in twenty minutes.

…But the clothes are threatening to swallow her whole (and they're not orange anymore) so she sighs a little and bends down, fingers brushing the muted red of a spiral.

.

"…Where's my toothbrush?"

Naruto has toothpaste on the corner of his mouth (and Sakura shudders to think how he actually goes about brushing his teeth if he starts out like that) and he's half naked and Sakura sets down her papers to glare at him. These are important documents, dammit, all about the hospital's expenses and how that one little boy might need surgery to walk again, and he is _interrupting_.

"The _medicine_ cabinet, since you don't have a damn cup to hold all the stuff."

He might have growled at her (she's so used to it it's hard to tell now) and stalks back into the bathroom. There are crashes and a cat meowing and several swears from Naruto before he emerges with a shirt on and his teeth white and toothpaste free.

"I hate you," he tells her, collapsing in the chair beside her. He takes one look at the reports and scoffs, arms crossed and head to the side like a petulant child. "Don't you have work or something?"

Sakura rolls her eyes (he's such a _child_, even at twenty-three) but doesn't reply. It's the first time in nearly three months (not that she's been counting) that he hasn't been on some mission and she hasn't been pulling overtime at the hospital. It's almost like old times (almost) except she doesn't hit him and he doesn't ask for dates and there's a person missing (but they never mention him).

There is silence, save for her rustling papers and she thinks that she's never seen him this quiet before. He's always moving, always talking, and it's strange to see him with his eyes closed and head down (and it's only now she notices the deep bags under his eyes and the retched pallor of his skin).

It takes only a minute (she does count, this time) for his breathing to become snoring. His head is at a terrible angle and as a medic Sakura knows she _should_ wake him or at least move him…

She gathers her papers and tiptoes out of his apartment.

.

Naruto is so _hopeless_ sometimes that Sakura worries for the sake of their village. He isn't, thank god, stupid and his face turns green at the very mention of ANBU. He's too bright, too cheerful to dampen himself by wearing a mask (the same mask that Itachi wore, the same mask that might have been destined for their other brother).

He shifts from one foot to the other and doesn't look at Kakashi when he says no, again. It's almost the same way he says no to getting a new apartment, but not quite, and Kakashi lets it go much easier than Sakura. He's old (not as old as Tsunade, but Sakura can see past the silver to find white) and doesn't want his remaining two students to throw their lives away. Like he had. Like everyone had.

It's just the two of them soon enough, sitting on some building's rooftop and the wind is blowing and Sakura wishes she had a hair tie: her hair is getting longer, it's nearly to her elbows, and she needs to cut it soon because Naruto's eyes narrow whenever it gets snagged in something. She's grown past the age of changing for a boy, but she figures she's hurt Naruto enough and if a haircut is what he wants, it's not too much trouble. (Because she'd grown her hair out for their brother, hadn't she? And that brother's not around anymore.)

He says something—she snatches it out of the wind and whacks him on the head, says it's not _funny_ and you're such a _boy_. He laughs, the bags under his eyes disappearing for a while, and says she'll agree eventually (even if it's the first time he's asked in years).

Sakura doesn't really want to say yes to a date, and he doesn't really want her to, so she sticks her tongue out and turns to go back to the hospital.

.

Sometimes they see each other on the street with someone else from a decade ago.

Sakura has Hinata by the arm, dragging her to one store to another to another and little Hanabi who's not so little anymore trails after them. Naruto joins them (he's not busy for once and Sakura thinks it's funny in a mean way, the way Hinata's face goes red) and teases Hanabi with his jokes and flirts but she doesn't flush and Sakura tries not to read into it.

It isn't meant to be this way, she thinks as she hands Hinata this dress or that shirt. It'd be best if Naruto fell in love with Hinata (Sakura's not quite sure where her heart is, right now) because Hinata still loves him (but no one knows for how much longer).

But Naruto is an idiot and likes to make things more complicated than they already are and likes to tell Hanabi that purple looks good on her.

.

It's not a _ritual_, exactly. It's not even a habit ingrained into them by Kakashi, though they do use it as an excuse when people's eyes show pity. It just…is.

The memorial stone hasn't changed from their genin days, not one bit. Sakura places her flowers by the names she doesn't know and Naruto stares at the closest thing he has to his father. Closer even than the title of Hokage, because these are the people that died saving his father, and that his father died saving.

He's doesn't know if the logic makes sense (not even Sakura understood, the one time he explained it) but it does to him and he doesn't care after that. It used to be that he wanted his name on this stone too, to be a hero because at least this way his name would be _remembered_. There are better ways to go about it, but he had been young and this was easy.

Naruto squats down by the old, weathered rock, and Sakura does the same. Their eyes follow along the names until they come to Yamada Taro. A bland name for a nonexistent person.

They bow their heads—this is the wrong name of the man who did everything for this village and to not show respect to him is wrong, because no one else ever will. This is the name of the man they both strive to be, if only for his dedication, and this is the name of the man they hope will one day be known as a hero.

(And if it's also the name of their brother's brother, they ignore it and move on.)

.

**AN**: So. Like. My endings suck. =D And I like Naruto/Hanabi. And I like platonic Naruto/Sakura. And clearly, I cannot write anything but gen so this is the closest I'll ever get to romance. =3

Disclaimer: _Naruto_ is not mine, never will be mine. If it were mine…Kisame would still be alive. T_T

(7/8/10 - small edit. FF took away the double dashes...meaning that this story was one big _mess_. _ Fixed now with periods. Hopefully they stay.)


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